Gerda Taro

A reexamination of the woman who created the legend of Robert Capa, the world'sfirst female photojournalist to die in combat, Gerda Taro In Paris in 1934, a young and beautiful Jewish émigrée, Gerda Pohorylles, met a Hungarian political exile, André Friedmann. They reinvented themselves as the photographers Gerda Taro and Robert Capa--and he would become the most important photojournalist of his generation. When Gerda was killed in the Spanish Civil war at the age of 26, Robert Capa was her most notable mourner--his grief was beyond control. Her funeral drew crowds of thousands and she became a hero of the political left. Despite the legend that was built around her, she subsequently became a mere footnote in Capa's story. Seventy years after her death a long-lost suitcase was discovered in Mexico, containing thousands of negatives by Capa and Taro. Most astonishingly of all, the "Mexican suitcase" showed that photographs that had been attributed previously to Capa were, in fact, the work of Taro. Jane Rogoyska's book will trace Taro's life and reveal the depth of her relationship with Capa. Charismatic and extraordinary, they epitomized one of the most tumultuous periods of the century.

Gerda Taro (19101937) was the first woman photojournalist to photograph in the heat of battle. Taro was the lover and photographic partner of famed photojournalist Robert Capa and, as his manager, is often credited for launching Capas career. She and Capa covered much of the Spanish Civil War side by side. Taro was killed in July 1937, while photographing a crucial battle near Madrid. ICP holds what is by far the worlds largest collection of Taros work, including approximately 200 prints as well as original negatives. Organized chronologically, this exhibition will include vintage and modern prints, and magazine layouts using Taros work. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue, the first major collection of Taros work ever published.

“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.” –Robert Capa Robert Capa and Gerda Taro were young Jewish refugees, idealistic and in love. As photographers in the 1930s, they set off to capture their generation's most important struggle—the fight against fascism. Among the first to depict modern warfare, Capa, Taro, and their friend Chim took powerful photographs of the Spanish Civil War that went straight from the action to news magazines. They brought a human face to war with their iconic shots of a loving couple resting, a wary orphan, and, always, more and more refugees—people driven from their homes by bombs, guns, and planes. Today, our screens are flooded with images from around the world. But Capa and Taro were pioneers, bringing home the crises and dramas of their time—and helping give birth to the idea of bearing witness through technology. With a cast of characters ranging from Langston Hughes and George Orwell to Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway, and packed with dramatic photos, posters, and cinematic magazine layouts, here is Capa and Taro’s riveting, tragic, and ultimately inspiring story. This thoroughly-researched and documented book can be worked into multiple aspects of the common core curriculum.

An extraordinary novel of love, war, and art, based on the turbulent real-life romance of legendary photojournalists Gerda Taro and Robert Capa Artists, Jews, nonconformists, exiles. Gerta Pohorylle meets André Friedmann in Paris in 1935 and is drawn to his fierce dedication to justice, journalism, and the art of photography. Assuming new names, Gerda Taro and Robert Capa travel together to Spain, Europe’s most harrowing war zone, to document the rapidly intensifying turmoil of the Spanish Civil War. In the midst of the peril and chaos of brutal conflict, a romance for the ages is born, marked by passion and recklessness . . . until tragedy intervenes. Already published to international acclaim, Waiting for Robert Capa is an exhilarating tale of art and love—and a moving tribute to all those who risk their lives to document the world’s violent transformations.

The life of a female war photographer killed in action is told by three of her friends in this biographical novel by the author of Bloody Cow. Gerda Taro was a German-Jewish war photographer, anti-fascist activist, artist, and innovator who, together with her partner, the Hungarian Endre Friedmann, was one half of the alias Robert Capa, widely considered to be the twentieth century’s greatest war and political photographer. She was killed while documenting the Spanish Civil War and tragically became the first female photojournalist to be killed on a battlefield. August 1, 1937, Paris. Taro’s twenty-seventh birthday, and her funeral. Friedmann leads the procession. He is devastated, but there are others, equally bereft, with him: Ruth Cerf, Taro’s old friend from Leipzig with whom she fled to Paris; Willy Chardack, ex-lover; Georg Kuritzkes, another lover and a key figure in the International Brigades. They have all known a different Gerda, and one who is at times radically at odds with the heroic anti-fascist figure being mourned by the multitudes . . . Another character in the novel is the era itself, the 1930s, with economic depression, the rise of Nazism, hostility towards refugees in France, the century’s ideological warfare, the cultural ferment, and the ascendency of photography as the age’s quintessential art form. Winner of the Strega Prize, The Girl with the Leica is a must-read for fans of historical fiction centered on extraordinary women’s lives. “A biography, a feminist parable, a declaration of love for photography, and a tableau of the 1930s: The Girl with the Leica is all this at once.” —Il Sole 24 Ore (Italy) “Janeczek creatively and seamlessly spotlights war photographer Gerda Pohorylle.” —Publishers Weekly

Once a cult-status rarity, Capa's classic, impassioned Spanish Civil War photobook is available again with new, high-quality image scans and supplementary research Robert Capa's Death in the Making was published in 1938 as a poignant tribute to the men and women, civilians and soldiers alike, fighting in Spain against Franco's fascist insurrection. The book included only one year of images from the Republican position, but covered the spectrum of emotions of a civil war, from the initial excitement to the more harrowing realities of modern warfare. But over time, after World War II and rising anti-communist paranoia in the United States, association with the Spanish Civil War was a liability and the book became obscured. Today, however, Death in the Making has reached cult status, not least because copies are hard to find (particularly ones with Capa's famous Falling Soldier image on the dust jacket). With new scans of all the images, this facsimile of the original edition reproduces the original layout by photographer André Kertész, the original caption text by Capa and preface by writer Jay Allen. The muddy 1938 publication is entirely transformed by high-quality printing to reflect the beauty and pathos of the original intention. This edition also includes a new essay with new research on the making and the reception of the original book, and a complete checklist identifying the author, location and date of each image. The most important new information is that Robert Capa and Gerda Taro are not the only photographers in the book, but also included was work by their good friend and colleague Chim, later known as David Seymour. Born Endre Erno Friedmann in Budapest, Robert Capa (1913-54) spent his early years moving from Hungary to Germany to France and Spain, first to dodge political strife and then to actively follow and document it. From 1936 to 1945 Capa photographed the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. In 1947, he founded the Magnum Photos agency with fellow photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson and David "Chim" Seymour, among others. Several years later, while documenting the First Indochina War, Capa died when he stepped on a landmine.

Discover the epic life of Gerda Taro, the brave photographer who captured the Spanish Civil War. 'Gerda Taro, the Final Shot' will transport you to the trenches and fiery streets, where courage and determination intertwine with the power of a camera. With captivating illustrations and a vibrant narrative, this graphic novel will immerse you in the harsh reality of war and the soul of an exceptional woman. Join Gerda Taro on her journey and be inspired by her courage and determination. An enthralling story that honors the memory of Gerda Taro and invites us to reflect on the power of art in turbulent times. 'Gerda Taro, the Final Shot' will make you fall in love, cry, and above all, leave you with a profound sense of admiration for a woman who changed the way we see the world.

Discover eight remarkable women war photographers who have documented harrowing and unforgettable crises and combat around the world for the past eighty years. Women have been on the front lines of war for more than a century. With access to places men cannot go, the women who photograph war lend a unique perspective to the consequences of conflict. From intimate glimpses of daily life to the atrocities of war, this exhibition catalog reveals the range and depth of eight women photographers' contributions to wartime photojournalism. Each photographer is introduced by a brief, informative essay followed by reproductions of a selection of their works. Included here are images by Lee Miller, who documented the liberation of Dachau and Buchenwald. The first woman journalist to parachute into Vietnam, Catherine Leroy was on the ground during the Tet Offensive. Susan Meiselas raised international awareness around the Somoza regime's catastrophic effects in Nicaragua. German reporter Anja Niedringhaus worked on assignment in nearly every major conflict of the 1990s, from the Balkans to Libya, Iraq to Afghanistan. The work of Carolyn Cole, Françoise Demulder, Christine Spengler, and Gerda Taro round out this collective profile of courage under pressure and of humanity in the face of war.